Wikileaks: Accepting Secrets Documents Nearly 4 Years Later

Wikileaks online whistleblower platform is live once again, allowing the Wikileaks organization to accept anonymous submissions of secret documents without worrying about any prying eyes.

Wikileaks announced Saturday, that after nearly five years, the organization is beta testing their anonymous submission system running on the Tor anonymizing software.

The anonymous submission of documents allows anyone to share secret documents and tip off the organization. The secure submission system will then upload the documents to a Wikileaks staffer.

It’s been four years since Wikileaks staffer, Daniel Domscheit-Berg had a dispute with the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Domscheit-Berg was concerned how the data was being securely stored and had held the encryption keys to the data. Due to possibly endangering sources, Daniel Domscheit-Berg decided to destroy the thousands of documents leading to the shutdown of the service.

Due to the closure, journalists and sources have been using SecureDrop and GlobalLeaks, other highly anonymized platforms whistleblowers can submit confidential files into.

Though alternatives exist, Julian Assange addressed the issues with these providers, stating such alternatives do not meet Wikileaks standards. “Other submission technologies inspired by WikiLeaks, such as the European-based GlobaLeaks and the US-based Secure Drop, while both excellent in many ways, are not suited to WikiLeaks’ sourcing in its national security and large archive publishing specialities,” Assange wrote in a blog post Friday.

Assange, the Wikileaks founder continued, saying “The full-spectrum attack surface of WikiLeaks’ submission system is significantly lower than other systems and is optimised for our secure deployment and development environment. Our encrypted chat system is integrated into this process because sources often need custom solutions.”

While the site is in beta, Wikileaks says the system had undergone testing prior to its revival and is fully functional.

During the time Wikileaks turned their secure platform offline, materials and information the organization handled was not labeled as secret or critical documents, such as previously leaked war crimes from overseas and United States intelligence revelations.

“WikiLeaks will continue publishing, as it has since its foundation, full archives of suppressed documents in strategic global partnerships. The 2.0 public-facing submission system is an important new method in our arsenal for recovering subjugated history,” Assange said, speaking on revival of the anonymous submission service.

The anonymous submission service can only be accessed through the Tor network at, wlupld3ptjvsgwqw.onion. The new and upgraded system allows whistleblowers to discuss the material, list organizations involved, threats, a timeframe for the publication and an area for any additional information necessary.

Since Wikileaks has begun to accept secrets again, we can expect to begin seeing classified secrets breaking headlines as whistleblowers now have a safe place to submit secret information. Documents can be submitted directly to Wikileaks here.